This week’s topic in my theology class was justification/sanctification. Our basic text, Daniel Migliore’s Faith Seeking Understanding, concluded the topic of sanctification (simply put, the continuous “making holy” of Christian lives) with these “marks of growth in Christian life:”

1. maturing as hearers of the Word of God. This means not just hearing, but being open to hearing things anew in different ways–and, importantly, being willing to assume responsibility for fresh interpretations and their implications.
2. maturing in prayer. This means not praying a lot or on a schedule or particularly eloquently, but cultivating relationship and a sense of God’s presence, as prayer is essentially personal communication.
3. maturing in freedom. This means experiencing and living out freedom in three ways–from legalistic living, from the compulsion to make everyone see things our way, and from passivity as we realize that we are intended and called to be agents of God’s love in this world. Or, more simply, freedom from all that undercuts love of God & neighbor, and freedom for expressing that love.
4. maturing in solidarity. This means recognizing kinship and fellowship across the artificial boundaries we allow to separate and define us. It involves repentance for these things, as well as celebration in our widening fellowship.
5. maturing in gratitude and joy. This is our response to God, as a God who creates and sustains life, a God who loves this created cosmos and the creatures in it, a God unwilling to let it all go down the drain as if it never had been and therefore a God willing to do whatever it takes to save it. Gratitude. Joy.
6. maturing in hope. This means learning how to hold on to #5, refusing to despair of it, despite the ways in which this world’s brokenness can obscure the loving presence and redeeming acts of God.

While the list is Migliore’s, the definitions are my own free interpretation of his text.

As a teacher, my task for the class was to ask, which of the above “marks” of sanctification, or growth in the Christian life, are evident and consciously cultivated in your church? Which are lacking, and what, as a pastor/member/aspiring ordinand can you do to address that lack?

Maybe that was my question to them because of all the introspection we’ve been doing at CCfB lately. I couldn’t help but ponder my own answers to these questions…and I’m interested in yours. Which of these “marks of growth in the Christian life” are most evident at CCfB? Where are we strong, and where are we weak? And what can we do, concretely, about that?

Ah, Lent. A long walk in the wilderness with nothing to distract from thinking thoughts about life and self and world and stuff. Is it over yet? Almost. A couple more weeks to go.

As many of you know, and the rest of you can discover by reading through our history, CCfB has undergone many transformations and relocations in our seven years. This body of Christ is young and still growing, and sometimes that means growing pains and sometimes that means scary leaps into unknown ventures, but that’s part of what it means to be vital and alive as the body of Christ. At seven years, we haven’t even hit puberty yet…we’re still losing our baby teeth.

(Okay, stopping myself before it gets too goofy… no one wants to think about puberty…)

Back to Lenten seriousness. During this time of Lent CCfB has been consciously and deliberately contemplating what is next for this community. What are we growing into? What do we need to keep maturing into the body of Christ we have always wanted to be?

Growing is just another way of talking about transformation–and growing is not always slow and steady and imperceptible…somehow those cute babies of a year ago are walking and talking, somehow my “baby” looks like she belongs in kindergarten already. Growth happens in spurts, after a period of storing up energy in preparation. That’s where we’ve been for awhile–storing up in preparation, getting ready for the next growth spurt and transformation.

So as we reach the end of this process of preparation, introspection, assessment, contemplation…consider another aspect of Lenten wilderness: visions. We need visions. We need your visions. What are our visions for this body of Christ’s future? How exactly do we want to grow? What do we want to grow into?

And then get ready. I don’t know what’s next, but it’ll be good.